Borrowed Covers, Part II

Oddly enough, I simultaneously saw two different users in separate Facebook groups post about reading Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, both with this cover from the 60's paperback version, which I had never seen before. Instantly I recognized Mario Bava's Shock, a film I haven't seen in well over ten years and can't quit remember all that well, but I've always enjoyed the poster.

And, not surprising the art was copied over for the film poster, thanks to the, uh... extent of "borrowing" in Italian films, with about a fifteen year gap since the paperback was published. Interesting they took out the jagged wood to give the horned appearance, but I suppose a ghost with a box knife is plenty to get the point across.

I found this image on Tumblr, posted by someone who erroneously claimed it was the "inspiration" for the poster art. Some reverse-googling shows this is actually the art of Anthony Jimenez, who creates collage work out of old posters and VHS covers. Looking at some of his other work, it's obvious these are collages, seeing mash-ups of things like Rats: Night of Terror! and Return of the Living Dead, or the groovy skull surgeon from Death Warmed Up. Pretty rad stuff, regardless!

Crime Covers

Mainly just wanted to document this link for identifying great crime art. Particularly just for myself, as I'm sure I'll forget about with the 200+ tabs across two browsers perpetually open and the thousand(s) of bookmarks I never re-check, and for the off chance someone stumbles upon this junk blog and finds it interesting as well. Plus I recently found this book below locally, which features some amazing art from Harry Bennett, featured in the aforementioned link. Always nice to uncover such things!

Big Orvie

Big Orvie
Din Andrew
1965

If I had to summarize Big Orvie, I'd say it's a bit like Of Mice and Men, just way sleazier and without the mouse petting.  Big Orvie snags you with the sleaze hook from the get-go, as the town floozy is hanging around a gas station, rubbing all over one of the (married) attendants. She moves over to Orvie, who is described as slow and essentially retarded, and sticks her hands down his pants to discover that while he's lacking in the brains department, he certainly isn't in another.

And so begins this odd soap opera in this podunk town. Everyone sleeps around and is generally scum in their own way. The main setting, the gas station, is co-operated by Rad and his partner Flotsky, while Orvie helps out as he can with supervision from Rad, who has watched over him through their entire life from childhood to present.

Unlike Steinbeck's Lennie, Orvie doesn't mean well. He steals from the cash register, manipulates Rad, and even tries to kill Flotsky; yet, somehow Orvie is considered the slow one here. Wife Jo isn't getting any from Flotsky since he's already getting his elsewhere, so she remembers Orvie's massive package and invites him over. They screw for hours, Orvie's endurance seemingly endless. Flotsky comes home to witness this and attacks Orvie, beating him into a corner. Then he goes for his wife, still stuck in sexual nirvana, and beats her with his belt. She's so sexed-up that she gets off on this and they rekindle their relationship. Briefly. Orvie gets fired and heads out to his zealot mother's house, while Flotsky skips town with the aforementioned floozy, leaving his perpetually horney wife and two children at home without any money or food and Rad to man the station -- and eventually his wife.

But Rad has a girlfriend. She's a great gal, a nurse and all, but she just won't put out for Rad, despite his frequent advances. She also quashes his dreams of grandeur of running a chicken farm with Orvie, and instead implores him to become a TV repairman. She promises to remain prude until marriage, and only a TV repairman will do! One night this is too much, so remembering the advances of Jo, he drives over to her house in the middle of the night, thus beginning their sex-fueled fling.

In the meantime, in one of the only genuinely disturbing scenes of the book, Orvie molests an eleven year-old neighbor and is subsequently arrested. Rad bails him out of jail and sends him out of town to start working on the chicken farm. Rad's girlfriend finds out about his affair and they eventually rekindle the relationship, leaving Jo utterly alone without anyone to quench her sexual desires.

So, with no options, it's back to Orvie she goes. She somehow knows where this old farm is and arrives to find Orvie living in squalor, the kitchen covered in trash and dirty dishes full of half-eaten food. Orvie's onto her games and knows what she wants, and Jo is practically begging him to take her to bed. Sensing the desperation, Orvie forces her to drink a murky bowel of leftover food, which is an odd mix of cereal and milk and ketchup and something else. She gags on the filth but keeps it down, winning Orvie over. Again they screw all night, her desires finally fulfilled. But Orvie knows that now that she's satiated she won't return. But he remembers how desperate she was and how he commanded her to drink the bowl of garbage in the kitchen, and soon he realizes what power he has over her and has other ideas, leading to the scene on the cover...

Despite the generally nasty premise, Big Orvie never gets overly graphic. It's all pretty tame compared to what you'd read in an action book from the 70s or 80s, but boooooy is it sleazy. I love these sort of backwoods sexcapades and small-town tomfoolery, so this was naturally a hit with me. Poor Orvie just didn't know any better!

Cheerleader in Chains

Stealthily edited by yours truly, MSPaint extraordinaire

Cheerleader in Chains
Blake Garfield
1988

The other week I was wanting to read something really sleazy. I had plenty of stuff on the shelf that would fit the bill, but was hesitant it wouldn't fully deliver on the goods I desired. Around the same time I inadvertently found an absolute treasure trove of resources over at Lusty Books while researching another book I was interested in, so I dove into the first thing that caught my eye, Cheerleader in Chains.

It wasn't so much an interest initially in something to this degree, as I'd certainly prefer something more horror oriented with the odd sexuality intermingled, but while previewing this book - which kept appearing when you refreshed pages - I happened to read one of the last pages, which was so absolutely depraved and absurd that I went in full force. Beware, because from this point on it gets downright nasty.

I'm not sure what this genre or type of book is called, if anything other than just porn. This company, Greenleaf Books, seems to have been quite the publisher in the field, with a large portion of this digital library comprised of their titles. And the titles are exactly just that; whatever the title is, that's entirely what it's going to be about. They're short and sweet, so with a title like Mom's Dog Rape, you better steer clear, because the entirety of that book is going to be about that poor mom and a canine's carnal adventures, part of their Pet line; while Cheerleader in Chains is part of their Bondage line of books.

And so I was quite surprised when starting Cheerleader, that within the first paragraph we get a little exposition, then it's zero to fuck just like that, burning down the track for the entire duration of its seedy contents of sexual depravity, never ceasing or slowing down with a growing number of fetishes and infinite cumshots.

Our character, a cheerleader from the city, instantly gets picked up after a football game by the rival team's fans, a group of over fifty rednecks. It never feels like the group is that large, primarily focusing on the ringleaders and their cronies, the rest of the group mentioned only to heighten the disgusting nature of what's going on, like when the author needs to detail just how many men just ejaculated on her. In one particular hilarious example of this, eight guys are tit-fucking her simultaneously. How they manage this I don't know!

Initially the character fights the horrible redneck onslaught as they gangrape her over a motorcycle in the street, slapping her gigantic breasts with sticks and verbally berating her. They decide to continue the gangrape to some secluded farmhouse, chaining her to a truck and forcing her to keep up as they drive. Before this they stick over twenty ball bearings into both her vagina and anus, the clacking of these inside of her as she tries to keep up on foot emitting perpetual convulsive orgasms throughout her body, while onlookers in other vehicles drive up alongside her to piss, spit, and throw manure in her face. But it's okay, because she's apparently starting to like it.

At the barn all hell breaks loose after they make her, uh... eject the ball bearings from her anus and vagina into a pan, then scoop them up in her mouth like a dog and wash them clean. More people slap her around and have sex with her, then they take her into the room of Booger, the barn's resident obese redneck. The book at this point had already been nasty, but the hellish domain of Booger is out of control in the sleaze department. Booger himself is just in tighty-whiteys and a wife-beater, which are both yellowed with sweat and emit an odor that only compliments the aforementioned look. The same goes with his bed, which is a disgusting, yellowed mattress. Booger immediately takes the cheerleader into his control and forces her to clean his toes with her tongue and mouth the outline of his privates that bulge out of the vile underwear. She almost throws up a few times, but at this point she's fully obsessed with this degrading torture, which at this point is almost pure, revolting pleasure. Booger then whips out his gigantic package, and to the delight and surprise of everyone, is successfully and miraculously deepthroated by the 'heroine', despite almost splitting her mouth apart.

The excesses from this point are just as crazy as they bring her back out into the main area of the barn, tying her down and gangbanging her more, women forcing oral sex on her while Booger and co. anally and vaginally penetrate her, whilst others just cum everywhere they can. Eventually she's tied up in a trough, where one of the women stick a mop handle TWO FEET inside her, the cheerleader somehow wanting more! All 80+ guys come up and cum all over her in the trough, then piss in it as well. This unholy concoction is detailed to be past her legs. Finally, the main villainess comes up and shits in her mouth, the cheerleader absolutely loving it. They leave her in the barn despite her erotic pleas for more, promising to return tomorrow as she remains chained up.

Kinda like a literally trainwreck, as I couldn't stop reading this drivel. Dunno how often I'll delve into this sort of stuff, because there's almost zero storytelling here; just endless, vulgar sex for pages and pages until its raunchy finale. What a ride.

Ambush at Derati Wells (Soldier of Fortune #6)

Ambush At Derati Wells (Soldier of Fortune #6)
Peter McCurtin (Ralph Hayes)
1977

I got a few of the Soldier of Fortune novels for cheap recently, and while I prefer to start with the first, I went ahead and started Ambush at Derati Wells, the sixth in the series, as it sounded the most interesting at the time. I'm glad I did, because I wound up loving it; and, thankfully, they all seem to be self-contained adventures, so I didn't miss out any continuing arc or continuity. Narrated by mercenary Jim Rainey, and that's all I needed to know.

Thanks to Paperback Warrior for the author correction (actually Ralph Hayes and not McCurtin, as on my cover) and excellent review. Ambush is fast and lean, just like I like it. Seems like there was actually some decent research into some of the resident tribes and verbiage of the land Rainey is currently stationed at, which adds nicely to the setting instead of the typical 'mystical' Africa.

Essentially a treasure hunt in the drylands of Africa, with competing hunters and natives along the way. Rainey teams up with a local African lawyer, a big game hunter guide and two of his customers, and a small group of guides and inventory schleppers, a far cry from the group of M-16 totting red-beret soldiers on the cover.

One thing I really appreciated with the narrative is how matter-of-fact it is. While obviously not a realistic novel, it pulls no punches with the mercenary experience. Main characters are dispatched without batting an eye, Rainey aware of what they signed up for, without excessive ruminating on their passing. It's all part of who they are, and it's hardly described as glamorous. You've got the odd, almost forced into the novel sex scene in the middle of the African desert, yeah, but that only leads to an excuse for more savagery and revenge down the road, so I'll take it. Good stuff.

Recent Stuff

Some mini blurbs from things I've enjoyed recently; or, rather simply procrastination from finishing the other, more in-depth reviews for a handful of books I start writing and don't finish for weeks. Certainly someone on the internet needs to review Big Orvie!

Swan Song
Robert McCammon
1987

This monstrous tome always intrigued me due to my infatuation with post-nuke stories. Primarily you'll read others categorizing this as a horror novel since McCammon's name is usually tied to the genre, but it hardly is. It's more Dark Fantasy/Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi if anything, with a slight touch of the demonic at times. I'll rarely touch something this large because it seems unnecessarily so -- and it is -- so I went the audiobook route through Amazon for my relatively short commute, and a form of influence for my gaining midsection to listen while at the gym.

While infinitely long, it moves at a steady pace, never boring and introducing only a handful of characters. It's a pulp epic and I can't see it trying to be anything else, which is a relief, so you don't have that Stephen King level of bloat that permeates his lengthy tomes.

In short, it's about a handful of people surviving after Russian and the U.S. simultaneously bomb each other through Mutually Assured Destruction. The sense of dread and hopeless is palpable, which is where McCammon really succeeds here. When he keeps it grounded into a simple survival story it's great; people struggle for food, fight diseases, and scour the remnants of a dead America. The groups of survivors are strictly categorized into two groups, which is essentially the personification of Good and Evil. Here's where McCammon really loses it for me. It's just too damned silly and black and white for my tastes, almost like a morality tale. Within the first few chapters the conclusion is already apparent and there's no surprises along the way, which really questions the validity of its length.

Still, the good outweighs the bad. Swan Song is pretty nasty and bleak at times, and that's when it prevails, through describing cultish encampments and the war between them, or a supermarket ran by the escaped denizens of an insane asylum. The fantasy, goodie nature of the protagonist though really grates, and McCammon isn't too skilled at dodging the clichés, which reaches an almost unbearable degree near the end. Almost impossible to recommend to read based on its length, but as an audiobook it made a largely entertaining affair that I could get lost in.

Biotherapy
Akihiro Kashima
1986

I really enjoy this great time in the 80s and early 90s in Japan where a string of great, SFX heavy DTV films -- usually at a runtime no longer than an hour -- were coming out on tape. Out of the ones I've seen, they're almost always a great display for quick, pulpy fun, usually showcasing the creative abilities of those involved with monsters, robots, gore, and everything in between.

Biotherapy is especially short, at only 36 minutes. A group of scientists are creating a formula that could potentially wipe out all plankton and completely screw up the world, but they're all getting wiped out in horrible ways by a trenchcoated being that glows blue, via eye-stabbing, stomach-gouging, and even ripping out the intestines.

It's short and sweet, but the narrative at times feels pretty stiff despite such a short runtime, so it almost feels a bit longer than it is, but only by a bit. Another worthy addition to this great period to sit alongside things like Gakidama and Cyber Ninja to name a few.

Original Release Cover

Hostesses in Hell
Russell Gray (Bruno Fischer)
1939

I usually get pretty bummed when there's a "rational" explanation to any sort of pulp stuff, like in Doc Savage or the few Weird Menace stories I've read. If there's a monster or something supernatural, I want it to be a monster or something supernatural, dammit! Needless to say, I was quite pleased when I purchased this wonderful collection from Dancing Tuatara Press through Ramble House, that during the introduction they talk about how those "rational" climaxes were growing stale, and a few writers started amping up the supernatural and violence without logical explanations.

Hostesses in Hell, the first novelette from the collection, is a lot like The Island of Dr. Moreau, except full of naked women, and the beasts that inhabit the island weren't created there. I won't spoil much, but it's basically one guy and his gal and all her babe relatives get on a boat and get lost at sea, then end up on this island. There's a fancy old estate there that's like an insane asylum, except these are all humanoid creatures (that look like slugs, crabs, and snakes) that were kin to rich relatives that paid to put them on this island to be taken care of. This gorgeous woman/creature, whom is basically just a voluptuous beauty with fangs -- and no soul. She's lets all the monsters out and seduces our hero, causing chaos amongst the island, as the monsters run amok, tearing apart naked women. This sort of no-nonsense storytelling is what I live for. Eagerly looking forward to the later stories (and volumes) from Mr. Gray!

Black Samurai #1

Black Samurai  (Black Samurai #1
Marc Olden
1974

I've always been familiar with the Jim Kelly film, Black Samurai, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was a book series by the revered Marc Olden, which at this point I still hadn't read anything of. Maybe not a good deal to most for ratty paperbacks, and since these are now available on Amazon in digital editions, but earlier this year I scored all of these in a lot off the 'bay. Price came out to about the price of the digital editions, but I felt it was worth it for my obsessive tangible desires. And the covers are absolutely glorious.

I've just read the first book so far. Didn't blow me away, but it's a solid setup for things to come. Our introduction to the Black Samurai is in Vietnam, where GI Robert Sand sees a group of white GIs bullying a frail Asian man. He intervenes and is shot in the process, seeing the elderly man clean up the scum with inhuman moves. Sand awakens in a different place, his wounds dressed. His savior is naturally a Samurai master, so no surprises what happens from this point on.

The story kicks into gear when a nasty group of terrorists with some world-cleansing ideals raid the dojo, machine-gunning, grenading, and attack-dogging all those inside. Sand and his fellow samurai manage to take a few terrorists with them, but they're ultimately all wiped out, with Sand the only survivor.

The revenge onward is decent, but only a few notable scenes. A lot of sleuthing about and finding the bad dudes, but one particular scene where he invades an outpost at night is pretty good, going as far as decapitating a lookout guy then throwing the head in, convincing the remaining guys inside to just straight up leave in fear!

It's been a couple months since I read this earlier this year, and already my memory of it has sorta diminished, hence the ass review. It was enjoyable and moved fast, but nothing that memorable--sans that glorious decapitation! With the intro exposition out of the way I'm definitely looking forward to the next volume that'll hopefully have a bit more to remember it by, especially the sixth volume with its delightful, cultish cover with whip-wielding midgets.

Rare Gwendoline Poster Appears!

One film I worship is Just Jaeckin's Gwendoline, also known as The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of Yik-Yak, very loosely based on John Willie's S&M comic Sweet Gwendoline. Jaeckin is best known for 1974's Emmanuelle, which was pretty huge and launched infinite films starring Emmanuelle (and often spelled Emanuelle), which in most circles is probably more popularly known as the bundle of Italian films featuring exploitation goddess Laura Gemser. I liked Jaeckin's; it's pretty, and I'm sure this is fault of the source material that I haven't read, but also a bit, eh... rapey--or totally liberating, in bonkers 70's film world. I've preferred the Gemser stuff, which doesn't shy away from its absolutely exploitation elements; it very much knows what it is, without any pretentions that some old dude drummed up about getting fucked against your will. The 70's!

But I digress! I don't collect many post variants, because Crom knows I already own way too goddamn many, with only a meager percentage of those actually christened upon my walls. But I snag up interesting Gwendoline ones when I can, because as I said, I absolutely adore it--and put them on my walls!

I've never seen this one at all, and whomever purchased it obviously hadn't either because it disappeared as I got the ebay notification within the day off surfacing. I'm pretty heartbroken I didn't get it. Just looking at it pulls my heart strings and stings with regret! $47 bucks is a bit up there for me--but it's Zabou! I assume this was some sort of promotional thing, with individual snaps taken from this other poster I've been after--and did get from the same seller!--so that's exciting, at least. But guhhhhh, I want this.

Oh well. Here's to hoping another appears someday in the future. For now just documenting since I haven't seen another online ever, ebay or otherwise.

Zulu Blood (Soldier for Hire #1)

Zulu Blood (Soldier for Hire #1)
Robert Skimin
1981

At a cover glance, Zulu Blood looks like it has it all: a discontent hardass protagonist with the silver likeness of Lee Marvin; people getting shot on the cover; implications of mercenaries; and of course, all taking place presumably in Heart of Darkness Africa, with some sort of pulp Zulu influence. These things are indeed all present, but it was a read that quickly showed its true colors of being quite a slog. I've been coming quite acquainted with Zebra's paperbacks lately; or, more so the size of them. Most of what I own is all horror, and despite somewhat large-ish print, they're still quite the tome. No exception here for their action line, and it certainly reads that way.

Zulu Blood starts off strong with the entertainment, but maybe not in the intentional way. Our hero, JC Stonewall, instantly starts going off on insane page-length rants about America's involvement in the Vietnam War--and not in the generally universal "we shouldn't have been there" view, but more so how we fucked up and didn't do it right. Liberals and commies instantly become interchangeable to hilarious extents. He know his flaws and how his dad was a no good drunk, but goddammit, he was a good American. This sort of comical jingoism permeates the entire novel like classic WWII propaganda posters, which, while funny at first, can start to fluff out the text.

The story stars with JC taking on a job from a white plantation owner in Africa. Her daughter and zany father are missing and, naturally, she's a MILF, which JC takes full advantage of after his brash introduction charms her into submission. Dad and daughter left to join up with a crazy warlord, as they feel like his leadership is good for the area or something, leading JC to bring a few of the Milf's workers with him to infiltrate the camp undercover as a reporter.

The biggest problem with Zulu Blood is that there's not a whole lot of action in between the exposition and sex. When it does happen it's pretty violent, like when JC mows people in half with his Uzi, then unloads the clip into the corpse while screaming a rebel yell. I'd take that stuff all day, but it's fairly sparse. A large portion of the book is spent arguing politics, like complaining about women's liberation and 'Red' China. JC's old buddy, a black fellow, appears partway through the book, which JC jokingly calls racial epithets at every chance he can get -- since they're such good buds and all. It's all pretty absurd, and while I do love this sort of insane writing it really grates through, simply because there's just so goddamn much of it, at times reading like actual propaganda. And yeah, I could obviously bat an eye at this and chuckle, but there's simply not enough action to balance it out. There's sponge-baths and blowjobs and some ritual torture, but even the finale lacks a good action resolution at the end of this padded monster.

I won't throw in the towel just yet on Stonewall. Some of these other volumes by other writers sound a bit better, but I probably won't be going out of my way to find any anytime soon. The recent library sale held one volume of the series, but sadly it was just Zulu Blood again. We'll see what the future holds for Solder for Hire.

Hell Raiders (Pasukan berani mati)

Hell Raiders (Pasukan berani mati)
Imam Tantowi
1982/83

Hell Raiders is a great title. A few films share that same name because it's so good. For this one in particular, the Indonesian titled Pasukan berani mati, Hell Raiders seems to be its dubbed counterpart. I've seen it translated as Soldiers Are Willing to Die, and Google translate tells me it's Death Squads. All pretty nice titles in my book. There may be a few versions out there, but this dubbed version I watched was just over two hours, which syncs up pretty well with the original Indonesian language track version. IMDB claims it's an hour and forty minutes, so who knows if that exists even.

And speaking of its length, Hell Raiders could certainly use some trimming. It's a pretty serious tale, and a real one at that, based on Indonesia's war against the Dutch empire for their independence, but it's still pretty standard Indonesian action fare for the time. Rapi films was primarily known for their exploitation style filmmaking, but they definitely go all out for this. There's plenty of explosions, military vehicles, and loads of extras that perish in the fighting that comes.

However, at two hours there's a lot of padding, because while the budget's bigger they still can't manage to blow up enough military camps or frankenvehicles for that duration. In between you get a lot of characters introduced and some inner turmoil emotion, all of which is whisked away due to sporadic light humor and the exploitative action you crave.

A lot of familiar faces, like Barry Prima (The Warrior series), Dana Christina (The Stabilizer, Rambu), Dicky Zulkarnaen (Virgins from Hell, The White Crocodile), and many others, so while Hell Raiders isn't always raiding Hell, there's still enough to be entertained by, like slingshots to the face, arrows in the neck, exploding fishing boats where bodies go flying, and even a sacrificial bombing that sends a head flying. Not essential stuff, but definitely enough to like.

Pictures at some point, otherwise this is just sitting in draft hell.

Menumpas Terrorists (The Terrorists)

The Terrorists (Menumpas Terrorists)
Imam Tantowi
1986

I've been wanting to see this a while now after seeing the rad cover a number of times, featuring Barry Prima in a beret (a perennial favorite) holding this insane gun that sadly isn't in the movie. The director, Imam Tantowi is mainly credited with a handful of Indonesian fantasy films, but I mostly see him come up for stuff like Blazing Battle, which also got an English dub VHS, and Hell Raiders, both of which I still need to watch. After watching The Terrorists, it's nigh time to get those watched 'cause this was killer.

I just rambled on two posts ago about my love for disaster and I also live for action. This is a combination of the two, so out of the gate it's already ticking all of the right boxes. I can best describe it as being like Hard Boiled mixed with The Towering Inferno, with the first half of the film being action and the second half a disaster scenario.

So yeah, some terrorists get some bombs from some genius nerd in a shack, then proceed to blow it up and go on the run. The cops find out and a chase ensues, mixing in actual driving with greenscreen where the drivers just shake the wheel back and forth erratically, just like in real life. This looks particularly rough since the greenscreened image is all washed out.

It gets crazier when the terrorists arrive at a hospital, which has also been greenscreened! Things start getting surreal, because parts of the hospital and even the outside of it aren't scaled correctly, so sometimes people look really small and other things absolutely enormous.

The terrorists bust into the hospital and start blowing people away at random. Pretty soon the special forces are called in. Indonesian action star Barry Prima and company are dropped in via helicopter, glad in bullet proof armor, berets, and white gloves. They drop in through the roof and windows and start spraying away into crowds of people to hit the bad dudes with precision accuracy from their MAC-10s.

In one crazy scenario, Prima and his partner Terminator walk down the hall and come face to face with two terrorists, one of which happens to be Advent Bangun, this real hardass looking actor I see frequently in Indonesian stuff. Both groups just stare at each other and then just keep unloading bullets, but Prima and crew just sit there stoically as their armor soaks up all the rounds.

Most of the terrorists are dispatched pretty quickly, but the lead creep runs up the stairs and starts setting off all the bombs, creating the aforementioned disaster scenario. Floors and halls are all on fire now and smoke is everywhere. Patients with bandaged heads and broken legs leap through windows and off the roof, only to fall with a greenscreened background until they slam on the grass below. The police call in the firetrucks (one happens to be a station wagon) and the rescue begins.

Firefighters enter the building and create a chute through a window and start passing in through patients, while above a helicopter picks up groups of people in a giant net. The remaining terrorist cackles and informs everyone they are all going to die, randomly shooting innocents along the way. He makes it up to the roof as well, shoots a few patients, then starts arguing with a doctor and demands that he holds the baby he's cradling. The doctor naturally gives in.

Chaos still ensues, with scenes of patients and staff on fire. In one insane scene some lady is looking for a baby, only for the camera to show a bloody little body being trampled on the stairs! Then we're back to the terrorist on the roof, making insane demands with the police below and randomly shooting people, all while holding a baby that he frequently points his submachine gun at.

This was pretty wild. I was a bit disappointed when the terrorist crew got taken down, but then gleefully excited once I saw what this was turning into. I viewed an old Japanese VHS that was dubbed into English with Japanese hardsubs at the bottom. There's multiple versions out there in multiple languages, including a widescreen print in Indonesian.

Pictures eventually when I'm not a lardass.

Rambo: Last Blood

Ahhhh, finally here, and everything I could have wanted. Caught the first showing on 9/19/19, eager to see one of my many idols murder countless henchmen. And he most certainly does.

I didn't come in hesitantly to visit my old friend, but I had a niggling assumption in the back of my mind that this wouldn't necessarily disappoint, but wouldn't be up to snuff with Rambo from 2008; it would simply just be okay, closing the final chapter on the beloved hero.

But huzzah! All assumptions eradicated, my body sweating in the faux leather theater seats from stifling my squeals as John Rambo shoots off heads with shotguns, breaks bones with his fingers, and unloads half a clip into what is already a corpse stuck in a spike trap.

Cold, brutal dialogue and a sleazy plot that culminates into an action-packed set-piece finale catapult this into classic action fare. Many modern film-goers have already began to fart out nonsense regarding the plot without understanding the element of action, the art of action. Those that question how someone never reloads, how bullets don't pierce objects someone is hiding behind, why all these doves are flying around, will simply never get it; yet for some reason never question other fantastical fare like the infinite Marvel films that endless drool out from Disney's teat. 'Tis a pity.

But oh, Rambo. Thank you for again quenching my action dream world, where endless henchmen die in creative ways and the satisfaction of revenge is the only thing that matters.

Gannon 1: Blood for Breakfast

Blood for Breakfast (Gannon #1)
Dean Ballenger
1973

Ohhhhh man, this was good. I've been on a chase for this for a good while now, first seeing it on the amazing Glorious Trash, then shortly after seeing writer/director Craig S. Zahler review it on Goodreads. I haven't read any of his books yet, but so far I've been enjoying his film output, especially Brawl in Cell Block 99. Naturally, like all things I read about and want, it's terribly rare and expensive. Patience eventually paid off (I wasn't patient; I looked it up almost daily) and eventually a copy surfaced from some random little shop in a different state. Then I said fuck it and dropped way too much money on the other two, but I've convinced myself that it was worth it.

Blood for Breakfast is a real anomaly. It's hardboiled crime set in the 70s, but it retains all the wacky character names and slang dialogue from something like Dick Tracy, but with that 70s sleaze and violence you know and love. Some shithead affluent teens rape a young girl, and despite people seeing it, everyone remains quiet like someone behind the scenes is paying some hush money or issuing out threats. Brother Gannon, a real hardass and ex-soldier hears about this from his Dad and gets furious and decides to leave. He tells his boss he'll be back and he's got some stuff to settle, so the boss gives him a pair of spiked knuckles to get some answers.

Gannon comes to town and starts throwing down some hard cash in some seedy places to get some answers, and when people give him shit he starts throwing those spiked knuckles around, tearing flesh off of faces and even ears. Everyone that comes across Gannon talks to him like a prohibition era cartoon thug, but they all concede because he's a fuckin' tiger, which is frequently repeated. In between searches he gets really horny and finds women to have sex with to calm him down, a bad trait he admits to that eventually causes him some trouble. But he can't help himself, like in one scene: "He grabbed a couple handful of boobs, nice firm absolutely no-sag boobs" before leaving her apartment to go hunt down more thugs. A man after my own heart.

This just never lets up; I haven't read anything like it. When I read something like Mike Hammer I'm always sad the sex is off page and the violence is so tame, but in this it gets downright nasty. Which is perfect. Mike Hammer would strongarm people and talk trash, but Gannon busts into an office and calls a lady, which is frequently narrated as a 'lesbian', to "Shut up, you officious bitch or I'll tear off your tits and slap your face with them!"

I won't go too crazy into the plot, but I read almost the entire thing one sitting and didn't want it to end. Hopefully someday these will at least get a digital collection. I'm not counting on it, but maybe Zahler can make it happen if he keeps it up.

Borrowed Covers, Part 1

I always like finding those posters or covers for ficiton that tend to 'borrow' from artists. Poor Frazetta seems to typically be emulated the most frequently, but due to his popularity and output these are usually pretty easy to spot. There's infinite coverage on game cover ripoffs, like Contra and Castlevania to name a few popular ones, but I don't see a whole lot for books. So huzzah, here we go whenever I find some.

Mindbridge the novel was published beforehand, but this specific re-release was in 1978, the same year of Eyes of Laura Mars. Maybe stretching it, but seems too coincidental.

Another similar case, both released in 1984. This one gave me quite a laugh. At a quick glance I swore that was Albert Finney.

 So I think this one is a bit of a reversal. Pigs was released in 1973, and any poster or release for it was quite a bit different until DVD, when the art started to adopt this cover from 1986, Richard Haig's The City (sequel to The Farm), which appears to be edited for its release. The good folks over at Vault of Evil posted the unedited image, borrowed here below, which these editions of the film have appear to been using.



The unedited art, courtesy of Vault of Evil boards.



I rented Pigs in middle-school and haven't revisited since, so seeing this now get a Bluray fairly recently was pretty exciting, although I'm not sure it's all that worth getting excited for! And same goes for The City, which took me a fair bit to track down, along with its prequel, The Farm, which I read last year and was quite underwhelmed with. A bunch of farm animals get all jacked up on PCP and there's sort of a siege situation on a farm. Sounds like the stuff of dreams, but it's mainly a lot of buildup to a pretty weak payoff. Pearls before swine or whatever.






The Touch of Hell

Original British cover that's fairly accurate.

The Touch of Hell          
Michael R. Linaker
1981

I really love chaos in fiction. Things exploding, people running around in a daze, everyone just trying to survive from this sudden disaster or whatever incident. I like the little scenes and descriptions that compliment the chaos, like this random dude in in Richard Laymon's One Rainy Night that runs out in the street and shoots an arrow at the protagonist's car, then disappears; or how when Anthony Edward's character in Miracle Mile returns back to the diner where it all started and it's in ruin, the people gone now and a coyote by the bar. Irwin Allen's big productions, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno really excelled at this too, especially with how it dispatches its big name cast without warning. And nothing really compares to those two in film. There's obvious budget constraints to all these practical things falling apart and exploding (just look at the horrible elevator effect in Earthquake), but modern disaster films skip the random group of people. It's usually a family or a small group, and from the get-go you know who's going to survive, so there's no impact or emotion when someone bites it.

So yeah, novels are where it's at in that regard for the most part, and I've been fancying a lot of British stuff lately where chaos runs amok, like Nick Sharman's kids on the rampage novel, Childmare, and the heart of this review/rant, Michael R. Linaker's The Touch of Hell, where people do indeed bite it.

The Touch of Hell takes place entirely in a small English village, so it's more low-scale disaster I suppose, but the small village/small town trope is always an arrow to my heart. You get your introductions to this guy and that girl and their little going-ons for a few brief chapters, then disaster strikes. A monstrous American cargo plane suffers some sort of malfunction and crashes straight through the village during a traffic jam. Cars and semis are flung every which way, houses topple and crumble, and a giant jet fuel conflagration breaks out in the city, instantly immolating almost all in its path. The scene is terrible: bodies blackened and fused to their melted cars, buildings completely destroyed or in flames, and families and sexed-up affairs separated through the confusion.

Really bizarre cover, and the version I have. Makes it look like this dude  caused the entire catastrophe.

Before long the military is called in, but it's not just for cleanup efforts. Something was in that American plane, and its gotta be contained before it spreads to the neighboring villages and London. Well, someone gets ahold of whatever it is, and pretty soon it starts to slowly spread. Think Emil from Robocop, all boiled up and mutated and falling apart, shambling around the street, and that's a pretty good description of what happens to a select few that come in contact with the stuff.

And that's where it unfortunately drops off a bit. The disaster doesn't reach full-scale dreamworld chaos that I desired, where bubonic mutant folk descend onto London. It's more of a countdown to containing this so it all doesn't go to hell, with most of the madness ending after the initial explosion/conflagration.

But not to be too harsh, because it's a quick read, and for the most part it delivers the goods, with descriptions of lovers being smashed under concrete and hardass military men having to gun down their best buds after they contract the bad stuff. I guess I always want things to go south and never come up for air.